Aluminium

Aluminium is a light metal which has a silvery white colour in its pure state and which is so soft that it can easily be stretched and used to make fine wires. It is also suitable for rolling into thin sheets or foils. Aluminium is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon) and is very reactive. For this reason it only exists in chemically bonded form.

The Dane Hans Christian Oersted discovered the element of aluminium in 1825 when he deconstructed alumina into its elements. This is where aluminium gets its name from, derived from the Latin word for alum, “alumen”. Two years later the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler was successful in producing aluminium powder. At this time aluminium was still more valuable than gold and had a higher price.

Today, aluminium is required in every industrial sector. Its specific qualities make it indispensable in many areas of application, such as the transport and construction industry, mechanical engineering or the packaging industry. Aluminium is not only very light but also very strong. It hardly corrodes and can also be recycled very easily.

Aluminium is used particularly in the packaging industry, but has also been favoured in vehicle construction for some years now, due to its low density. By combining it with magnesium, silicon and other metals, an alloy can be manufactured from aluminium with a strength similar to that of steel. The metal is also used in aircraft construction and in space technology. Because of its electrical conductivity aluminium is also used as a conductor material in power lines. Thanks to its properties the light metal is superior to copper here, which would have a greater mass with the same conductivity. Because of its heat conducting properties, aluminium is also required to manufacture heat exchangers (coolers) and cooling fins.

Europe and the USA require and consume the largest amount of aluminium at present, but aluminium consumption in the growing industrial nation of China is increasing, particularly because of the metal’s use in the booming construction sector. Aluminium is produced primarily in China, Russia and the USA, while the most significant aluminium ore deposits can be found in Australia, Guinea, Brazil, Jamaica, India, Guyana and Indonesia.

Producing aluminium is a very energy-intensive process – around a quarter of the manufacturing costs are attributable to energy consumption. This means that the price of aluminium is mutually interdependent on the price of oil. The most important trading venues for aluminium are the London Metal Exchange, which is the primary exchange for aluminium and offers the highest liquidity, and the New York Mercantile Exchange (COMEX).